Northwest Offers Gender Neutral Housing

A housing initiative brought on by transgender students at Northwest Missouri State University went into effect this fall with 35 students participating in “gender-neutral housing.”

While it was an initiative spurred by the transgender population on campus, the new policy isn’t meant to cater to one demographic — it’s open to all students.

Transgender students, who are students that don’t identify with the gender in which they were born, wanted more options in their housing choices. Before the new policy went into effect, Northwest housing officials would work with these students individually to get them into more comfortable housing situations.

“We started to learn that maybe we need to come up with a different policy,” said Rose Viau, director of residential life, “because some transgender students don’t want to have to come forward and say they’re transgender, they just want to pick where they want to live.”